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Down in Old San Antone

It’s “San Antonio,” of course, but I keep thinking of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, singin’ about “Old San Antone” when it was a sleepy, blistering-hot place far down at the end of the trail.

It’s hotter than ever there now, as you know if you’ve heard about the record heat wave and drought that have broiled Texas to an even cracklier crisp this summer.

But sleepy it’s not.

It doesn’t seem that big when you’re there.  Maybe they’re counting the thousands of young men and women just passing through at the city’s four huge military facilities — and there used to be something like seven — or included some longhorn cattle busting through the brush outside of town.

Big or not, podner, San Antone’s a mighty interesting place.  It bakes in south-central Texas, straight west from sprawling Houston, down the trail a piece from the state capital at Austin, and lassoing distance — sorry — from Hill Country.  More about that magical place in a bit.

San Antonio is named for a saint, Anthony of Padua, Italy, but only because his feast day happened to fall on June 13

One is the Alamo , a tiny stone mission where, in 1836, almost 200 defenders died fighting for Texas’s independence from Mexico.  About a block away is the Paseo del Rio, or River Walk , a subterranean fairyland along the San Antonio River.

Now mind you, that river through town is a most ordinary stream.  It begins in the aquifers of the Texas Hill Country and meanders southward to the Gulf of Mexico. In some spots, you can step across it.

But beneath the streets of San Antonio, the river is transformed into a Venice of the American West.  Boats filled with tourists glide around a hairpin bend, past cobblestone walkways and beneath arched stone bridges.

Under colorful umbrellas set out by hotels, restaurants, and bars, visitors sip Texas and Mexican beer and stiffer drinks, including margaritas made from the fermented juice of the prickly pear cactus.

Up above, at street level, it’s often broiling hot and oppressively humid.  But down along the River Walk, it’s cooler, calmer, and far more romantic.

What, you don’t think strolling mariachi bands, scented flowers, and passing gondolas are romantic?

During fiesta each spring, waterborne floats parade past thousands of spectators.  And come Christmas season, more than 120,000 tiny lights twinkle in the hibiscus bushes and willow trees.  Candles, glowing in paper bags weighted with sand, line the river.   Romantic, I tell you.

In King of Prussia, Ready for the Catholic - Supremacy and Survival

I'll be posting updates on the conference here and also on the Catholic Writers Guild blog. The theme of the CWCL this year is MARKETING and there are several presentations on marketing, including mine. The Catholic Marketing Network Trade Show (CMNTS) is set up in the lower level of the Scanticon Hotel and our Conference sessions take place in different meeting rooms on the main floor of that hotel. The CMNTS hosts events in the evening in the Radisson Grand Ballroom--tonight there is a showing of a new movie on St. Philip Neri, Blessed John Henry Newman's patron! They also offer Mass and Eucharistic Adoration, and I'm sure with all the priests in attendance there might be opportunities for Confession. Catholics have invaded this little part of PA!

King of Prussia

King In Prussia

The life of Frederic the Second, king of Prussia

The life of Frederick the Second, king of Prussia, To which are added observations, authentic documents, and a variety of anecdotes

The life of Frederic the Second, King of Prussia